Biographical Memoir of M. l^i^ffft, 2^ 



researches, the most bcautiiul gem? of Europe passed under bis 

 eyes ; he even wrote a particular treatise on tljera * ; but he npver 

 saw in them any thing else than crystals. A degree more or less 

 in some angle of* a schorl or spar, would of a certainty have in- 

 terested him more than all the treasures of U)th Indies, ai)d 

 even if he could have been reproached with having formed too, 

 lively an attachment to any thing, it was to his ideas on this very 

 subject. He concentrated his mind entirely towards them. It 

 was with impatience that he saw himself deflected from them by 

 objections ; his repose was disturbed, they A^ere the only thing that 

 could make him give up his ordinary mildness and benevolence ; 

 and we must confess that they sometimes produced that effect 

 upon him. This disposition perhaps prevented him from paying 

 sufficient attention to the observations made with Wollaston's 

 new goniometer on the angles of calcareous spar, magnesian spar^ 

 and sparry iron. But who would not excuse a valetudinarian, 

 long a stranger to the world, attacked at his first appearance in^ 

 the most unjust and offensive manner ; who would not excuse 

 him, I say, for not having sufficiently distinguished from his 

 first and ignorant antagonists, those who, afterwards enlighten- 

 ed by his own discoveries, appreciated differently from himself 

 some facts of detail, or even some principles which he had toq 

 much generalized ? 



Certain it is, that in the moments when he paid this tribute to 

 human weakness, he was only animated by what he supposed 

 the interest of science ; and that, if he vexed himself, it was only^ 

 with what he thought would form an obstacle to the triumph of 

 truth. 



At the period when it was wished to give some activity te 

 public instruction, the government requested M. Haiiy to dra?^ 

 up a treatise on physics for the colleges. M. Haiiy had more 

 than one title to diis commission, both in the ingenious manner 

 in which he had applied physics to mineralogy, and in several 

 interesting memoirs on the electricity and double refraction of 

 minerals, as well as in the elegant exposition which he had given 

 of iEginus's theory respecting electricity and magnetism, and 

 in the success which he had obtained in the course of physics 



• Trait* des Caracteres Physiques des TicrrCvS Prfidcuscs. I vol. 8vo. Vans, 

 1817. ''"^ 



